Thursday, August 13, 2009

Gimme All Your Lovin' In the USSR



The designer dictatorshit of Gorbachev's Soviet Union imploded from an overdose of crack glasnost. In its wake, Finland's audacious rock band, The Leningrad Cowboys, freshly back from a USA tour, made a coup in the collapse of the USSR. The magnificent Red Army Choir found a haven in opening itself to music from the running dogs of crapitalism. A deal was struck and the concert series, Totally Balalaika, traversed Europe.

The Cowboys ridiculed sovietism. Note the exaggerated number of medals on their jackets, emulating the old farts on Lenin's tomb. The drummer is set up as a tractor; two guitarists have guitars shaped and coloured as tractors. There are other satiric potshots. All this with the collaboration of The Red Army Choir. Splendid irony. That's what the shock and awe of Freedom does from time to time.

Free speech blossomed and this concert series was one of the greatest early outcomes of liberation.

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